The Mug change, predictably, feels like garbage.

[wereotter]

I agree with you that Assassinate/Dream within a Dream is pretty boring as it is (cool animations aside!), and that Mug is not a very satisfying party buff button. I really don't understand what was wrong with keeping it on Trick Attack, the iconic party buff of the Ninja class since the very day it was introduced. I just... why not just keep it there... it has historical precedent, a great animation, and most importantly nobody was unhappy with it!


I think the idea of upgrading Mug into a more Ninja-like skill is a great idea too. I don't think it needs to become Assassinate or have a party buff attached, though.

Coming from what seems to be the developer's visions for party buffs, Trick Attack had to change. They seem to be in the mindset currently that personal buffs and bursts happen every 60 seconds, even if that burst is rather small, and party-wide buffs go out every 120. With trick being a party wide every 60, changing it to just a personal damage buff is a very sensible solution. But what comes is that mug just doesn't feel like it has the impact that trick does when you use it. It's got a goofy sound effect and very subtle animation, and unlike ninja's trick, requires zero setup to use

Honestly I'd forgotten that Assassinate upgrades to Dream because I never play low level ninja, but I do think there are better solutions than just using mug. Another thought might be having Ten Chi Jin apply a personal buff that upgrades your next trick attack to what we had before, increasing party damage. Sure that would delay ninja's party support, but not so far as to cut off much that's really important these days, and gives it to ninja at the same level monk gets its similar move, brotherhood.

All that being said, I do think that they couldn't do much more major since they tend to avoid massive job overhauls in odd numbered patches so that people don't have to entirely relearn their job potentially mid way through a savage tier or right before ultimate comes out.

I don’t feel Positionals need to go away at all personally. But they do need better implementation if certain jobs are supposed to have a lot of them. I prefer Samurai’s softer approach where you can flex your basic Sen combos around how you will position in the next 25ish seconds or so to more static options like Dragoon, but I don’t think either is ‘Bad’, but the focus is misapplied. Heavier Positional jobs like pre-Endwalker Monk need to be designed in such a way that they are inherently more flexible by default to compensate for problems with their demand. This is why I’ve wanted positional based chakra generation for so long. With a tightly controlled gauge it would fit better with XIV’s fights overall.

I agree. I think that overall positionals are more of a positive than a negative for the game. I just think that there are some fights where I don't feel like the developers think through entirely how melee damage will be impacted. P3S has a phase starting at Firestorms of Asphedelos through Death's Toll where, for the most part, where you stand is dictated by the raid mechanics. The phase lasts for nearly 2 minutes, during which time you'll get 40 seconds of true north. So thinking of ways around that so melee jobs aren't punished because of how the fight is designed would be nice. Both myself and my co-melee partner have brought up to the raid group how we can't get enough true north to do our jobs effectively there, and he's just a reaper, he can theoretically hold off his positional moves. I'm a monk, I don't have that luxury.

[aloneatsea]

snip

They do seem to be in taht mind, I am firmly against it. I don't think Ninja needed a personal buff in the first place -- it was already doing plenty well balance-wise this tier as it stood. Having a manage a personal buff on top of the party buff just makes the class feel clunky in my opinion. I would sincerely feel better about the changes if they made Trick a two-minute party buff and removed the personal buff from Mug.

That said, again, the class did not need such a change in the first place. If the developers want to make classes focus around two minutes, that's fine. However, when it comes to the point of changing the usage of an iconic ability of a class, I think it goes a little too far. Ninja is not Ninja without a one-minute Trick Attack party buff. As many people have said time and time again, one minute fits neatly into two minutes. If the problem is balance, there are other solutions that do not come at the cost of class identity.

What I struggle with is that so many people seem to want to compromise on the personal buff. Am I abnormal in thinking that it feels quite awful to play around? There's a reason I avoid classes like Monk or Dancer -- having to put up a personal buff and a party buff feels quite wretched to me. I'd much rather potencies be adjusted to account for the damage increase the personal buff gives. I don't think receiving a personal damage buff makes gameplay more exciting. Buffing the party, however, and lining up my big damage abilities -- that feels meaningful.

I just don't want Ninja to lose what made it enjoyable for me to play in the first place -- the fact that it wasn't like anything else. If they keep these changes, there's really nothing else I can move to.

It makes so much more sense in my mind to keep Ninja as it is, and adjust the potency on Trick Attack if it's so problematic. The developers could always approach it like Dragoon's Dragon Sight and have it buff the Ninja's damage by more than the party member's.

Frankly, I'm glad they couldn't do anything more major. The only 'major' change I want to see in Ninja right now is them reverting the changes to Trick and Mug.

The only problems 6.08 Ninja had were a few unspired oGCDs (Mug, Meisui, Dream within a Dream) and poor Ninki generation. I don't think Ninja needs an overhaul to fix these problems -- nor were they more pressing than other job issues.

[wereotter]

That said, again, the class did not need such a change in the first place. If the developers want to make classes focus around two minutes, that's fine. However, when it comes to the point of changing the usage of an iconic ability of a class, I think it goes a little too far. Ninja is not Ninja without a one-minute Trick Attack party buff. As many people have said time and time again, one minute fits neatly into two minutes. If the problem is balance, there are other solutions that do not come at the cost of class identity.

I think this sums up the difference in our opinions (and that's fine) to me the identity of ninja isn't the 60 second trick attack, it's the ninjutsu system. Trick attack could be every 60 seconds, every 90 seconds, every 120 seconds, and to me, that wouldn't change the identity of the job.

But even then, the developers are also doing a lot of upending of job identities this expansion too, so I get the frustration there. When monk lost its identity of being fast paced and positional heavy to having the fewest positionals of the melees and had it's OGCDs moved into it's version of mudras, that hurt as someone who's always bounced back and forth between monk and ninja as my main jobs. Summoner had it's identity as a damage over time job removed too.

I do think we both agree there are better ways the changes to ninja could have been implemented, at least, even if we disagree on what those solutions should be.

[Rufalus]

Monk still feels Monk enough to me while they keep the opo opo, coeurl, raptor stance gcd combos. Things I like about the EW changes are multiple charges of zooming to ally/enemy and the collecting seals/chakra thing fits really well in my opinion.

The worst job killer change that comes to mind is when they made Ast cards all basically do the same thing. Also I was disappointed with Ast's dps kit from its very introduction in Heavensward; that was when I realized healers will always be DoT + spam one other button.

[aloneatsea]

I think this sums up the difference in our opinions (and that's fine) to me the identity of ninja isn't the 60 second trick attack, it's the ninjutsu system. Trick attack could be every 60 seconds, every 90 seconds, every 120 seconds, and to me, that wouldn't change the identity of the job.

But even then, the developers are also doing a lot of upending of job identities this expansion too, so I get the frustration there. When monk lost its identity of being fast paced and positional heavy to having the fewest positionals of the melees and had it's OGCDs moved into it's version of mudras, that hurt as someone who's always bounced back and forth between monk and ninja as my main jobs. Summoner had it's identity as a damage over time job removed too.

I do think we both agree there are better ways the changes to ninja could have been implemented, at least, even if we disagree on what those solutions should be.

Hmm, I see. For me, I agree completely -- mudras are the core of Ninja, but I consider Trick Attack to be an extension of the mudra system, based on its interactions with Suiton.

To me, it's very clear that the way mudras function centers around Suiton and Trick. You receive one mudra charge every twenty seconds, and coincidentally (or not) the Suiton buff lasts just as long. This is perfectly, and I believe intentionally, designed such that you can prepare Suiton 20s in advance, activate Trick just as Suiton's buff is about to run out, and then comfortably fit two mudras (usually Raiton) within Trick. To me, Trick and Mudras go hand in hand. You can change the potencies on Trick as you like, but changing Trick from a one-minute cooldown would throw the whole system into disarray. If Trick became a two-minute cooldown, you'd suddenly have to dump a Raiton during odd-minute windows (where you would previously have prepared Suiton), but prepare Suiton on the even windows. It would at the very least feel strange and somewhat clunky, I think, as that Raiton would just have nowhere to go, whereas before, all of your mudras were dedicated to enabling burst or being burst.

The fact that Trick and the mudras seem to be built so intentionally to work together is why I'm so adamant that Trick should stay as it was in 6.08. They are quite explicitly tied together, what with a whole mudra dedicated to enabling Trick, and separating them without destroying what makes Ninja, well, Ninja, is no simple task. I feel that the risks of changing that core far outweigh the benefits.

[Manofpassion]

To me, ninja's core identity is both mudras and old trick. I don't want one without the other.

If the devs do have the urge to upend Job identity, mudras are clearly higher up on the priority list. Being very frustrating for people with lacklustre Internet, removal of bunny mudra or some sort of pity system would be very welcome. I would argue mudras aren't even that unique to ninja anymore, with monk already having a mudra knockoff with the nadi system. Modifying mudras will improve accessibility and ease, something the devs clearly have a hard on for. Changing mug does neither.

The trick gutting is sake for the sake of change. The class isn't easier, the class isn't more fun, and the class isn't more unique. I much rather the ninja devs only actually implement changes when they have good ideas, not something they just think of in a lazy afternoon. Furthermore, the ninja devs should spend their time actually playing ninja instead of thinking of half-baked ideas. I believe if they play the game they will have a better understanding of the job.

[AnotherPerson]

What I struggle with is that so many people seem to want to compromise on the personal buff. Am I abnormal in thinking that it feels quite awful to play around? There's a reason I avoid classes like Monk or Dancer -- having to put up a personal buff and a party buff feels quite wretched to me. I'd much rather potencies be adjusted to account for the damage increase the personal buff gives. I don't think receiving a personal damage buff makes gameplay more exciting. Buffing the party, however, and lining up my big damage abilities -- that feels meaningful.

I just don't want Ninja to lose what made it enjoyable for me to play in the first place -- the fact that it wasn't like anything else. If they keep these changes, there's really nothing else I can move to.

It makes so much more sense in my mind to keep Ninja as it is, and adjust the potency on Trick Attack if it's so problematic. The developers could always approach it like Dragoon's Dragon Sight and have it buff the Ninja's damage by more than the party member's.

Frankly, I'm glad they couldn't do anything more major. The only 'major' change I want to see in Ninja right now is them reverting the changes to Trick and Mug.

The only problems 6.08 Ninja had were a few unspired oGCDs (Mug, Meisui, Dream within a Dream) and poor Ninki generation. I don't think Ninja needs an overhaul to fix these problems -- nor were they more pressing than other job issues.

It's a bit of a mixed bag for me, but I accept the idea of what they're trying to do. On one hand, I actually like ninjas having more personal damage on their burst. If their personal burst felt weak, then they just feel like a gimped "burst" job tied to Trick Attack in content outside of raiding because the RDPS gain locks them into a design for only being a Trick Attack buffer and lacking any job fantasy outside of support. In a way, opening the design for Trick Attack to be a personal buff allows more flexibility in design as you can only fit in so many skill changes in a 15 second burst window before everything crumbles apart by next expansion with the introduction of a new skill or two. We can already see that happening with the removal of Shadowfang and replacing it with Phantom Kamaitachi, but for ninjas where their damage is their initial burst window, it's even more damaging on the leveling process.

At the same time, because the game is designed under 60 second burst windows (WAR getting the 60 second timer on IR for example), mug feels VERY out of place now - because Ninja's second identity is raidwide damage burst buff every 60 seconds. Changing party buff to a 120 second window makes the window very inflexible in its own way.

Essentially, Ninja's been suffering from its 2 unique identities - job fantasy wise (a high initial personal burst damage job for its assassin-like gameplay + a support burst job with Trick Attack). Because the higher level you go % buffs actually increase significantly as more jobs get more skills + stats, the personal burst & future skill potencies for ninja had to be lowered to compensate. The developers had this problem with Trick Attack in the past (10% party buff but shorter buff duration) where ninja is usually left in this weird state of balancing which led Ninja to feel really weak or really strong in terms of its personal damage to its overall damage. Ninja would be 'overpowered' / acceptable with trick attack padding, but could feel like utter trash to level because all of its damage was based on rDPS and your hugely padded numbers of rDPS doesn't help you kill enemies faster in solo content stuff when your initial burst doesn't actually kill the enemy. Again, this is due to the way % based buffs work, the higher level you go, the larger their impact will be and the smaller the effect will be when you're not with a party - which runs counter to its other identity as an assassin-like job identity of directly killing the enemy at the very start of the fight because you just lack that personal damage to do so.

A big reason why I play PvP for Ninja now is exactly because it captures the assassin-like job fantasy while giving into some support flavor through debuffs & utility that can affect the battle (afflicting heavy, stun, able to shield + gain movement speed, healing, gap close + stealthing mid-combat + assassinate, etc.). Unfortunately, not all of that can be translated well in PvE due to balancing issues and debuffs largely being ignored. So yeah. Mixed bag for me.

[aloneatsea]

snip

I feel you, I do, even if I don't agree with some of your personal takes. Ninja feels like it's being tugged in two distinct directions right now, and it just feels like a mess as a result.



I'd feel like the levelling argument would hold more weight if not for two things:

1. Levelling is temporary, endgame is forever. While it's important to make sure the levelling process isn't outright awful, I strongly disagree with making sacrifices on the part of Level 90 content for the sake of making a temporary situation better. You spend so much more time at level cap than you do at any other point during the game. Levelling is faster than it's ever been, too.
2. Other jobs suffer worse! Dancer and Bard are even more reliant than NIN on party members feeding into buffs to make the most of their kit, so should we gut them as well? What about healers, with their incredibly low personal DPS? Sure, they can heal themselves, but doing any kind of solo duty takes twice as long.

I do really agree that levelling Ninja doesn't feel super great, but I just can't agree with gimping Trick and giving more personal damage for the sake of levelling. Rather, we should tune solo content such that it can be completed by any job.

I do see what you're saying about Ninja being either very strong or very weak, but even in 6.05, where Ninja was arguably at its weakest in a good long while, it was still very possible to complete content with the job. I cleared P4S during 6.05 on Ninja; as did many others. While I do empathise with not feeling like your job is strong or worthwhile if your numbers hit a little lower than other jobs in your role, I don't think Ninja has in recent times had the issue of being so weak it was excluded from parties. Of course, this is me speaking anecdotally, maybe others have had different experiences.

We've already kind of gone down the track of 'Ninja's personal damage is too weak, it's too reliant on others for DPS' with the move from 10% DMG up -> 5% DMG up in Shadowbringers, which is a pretty substantial nerf to rDPS! It's very difficult to argue making a personal buff much weaker; 5% is simultaneously not a lot of damage and also a huge amount of damage.

I guess my main question is, where do we draw the line? If we follow this train of thought to its logical conclusion, every job becomes selfish and party buffs cease to exist. I don't think anybody genuinely wants this, nor do I think we'd ever actually get to that point, because (at least in my opinion) party buffs are fun! It feels good to buff and be buffed. It's rewarding when you play into it. But -- the fact remains that if you continue to gnaw away at existing buffs, jobs become more and more selfish over time.


The biggest loss, however, is that NIN's party buff is no longer on the 1-minute cooldown, which is just heartbreaking for so many reasons. For many reasons, including what you pointed out.

I do disagree that moving Trick to a personal buff opens up more flexibility in design. You're still pressing the same buttons, and Trick is still a damage up ability, it just only affects you now. Trick becoming personal doesn't affect how many abilities you press inside of Trick. Rather, Mug becoming a party buff does, because it prevents you from pooling Ninki and means you have one fewer oGCD to hit inside Trick. While this does technically more oGCD weaving windows, I'd argue it's a regression because what kind of builder-spender job isn't able to build for burst? Ninja is uniquely punished at the moment for entering a two-minute burst window; you're in most situations forced to use a Bhava before you get your buffs up, which feels like such a waste. Removes the itty little bit of skill expression of drifting Mug into Trick, too.

I don't know, I just... mm. The solo experience shouldn't suck, but it just seems a little backwards to me to balance an MMO -- a multiplayer-focused game -- on a solo player experience. Make it not suck, absolutely! Make it reasonable and clearable. But -- shit, Ninja was one of three big buffing classes in the game. Now we just have Dancer and Bard as big buffers. Sure, many jobs have two-minute buffs (12/19, by my count), but when everyone has a two-minute buff, it's the same thing as nobody having a two-minute buff...

[Jaquan]

I don't know, I just... mm. The solo experience shouldn't suck, but it just seems a little backwards to me to balance an MMO -- a multiplayer-focused game -- on a solo player experience. Make it not suck, absolutely! Make it reasonable and clearable. But -- shit, Ninja was one of three big buffing classes in the game. Now we just have Dancer and Bard as big buffers. Sure, many jobs have two-minute buffs (12/19, by my count), but when everyone has a two-minute buff, it's the same thing as nobody having a two-minute buff...

Don't you see an Irony here? Ninja - a job with a single party wide buff was relegated to the same role as Dancer and Bard despite the latter devoting half of their kit towards that goal. A single ability that created so many weird connections that Ninja has pretty much no room for personal growth without a risk of making it broken. Even Dancer and Bard have more room to growth since at worst all you need to do is ti weaken synergy with another class yet that doesn't really apply to one that synergizes on high level with almost every other party member.

[aloneatsea]

Don't you see an Irony here? Ninja - a job with a single party wide buff was relegated to the same role as Dancer and Bard despite the latter devoting half of their kit towards that goal. A single ability that created so many weird connections that Ninja has pretty much no room for personal growth without a risk of making it broken. Even Dancer and Bard have more room to growth since at worst all you need to do is ti weaken synergy with another class yet that doesn't really apply to one that synergizes on high level with almost every other party member.

You say 'relegated' here like being a buffing class is a bad thing. And yes, one ability can be that impactful. Old Trick's short cooldown and power (5% is the second-highest DMG buff iirc? might be wrong) means it is up 25% of the time - Mug's uptime is only 16.67%, and it's one of the better buffs out there at the moment.

Again, you say weird connections -- I'd call that synergy, personally -- but I don't think I'm understanding you when you say that it limits Ninja's personal growth. We've been growing just fine -- Raijus are a fun addition to the job, even if they took a bit of tweaking. There's plenty of room to add different mudras, add more Ninki spenders, add more oGCDs; hell, maybe we even get another gauge to manage so we have something to do during our downtime. We could bring DOT management back, have some different combo paths, there's really infinite possibilites.

You say Dancer and Bard have more room to grow, but I'm not quite understanding where you're coming from. Why do you need to weaken synergy between classes in order for them to experience 'growth'? That just sounds like we'd be headed towards a future where there's no party buffs at all - and at that point, we might as well be playing a single player game.

I do want what I do to impact other classes, y'know? I like buffing, and I want to keep doing it. As it stands, Ninja has gone from one of three (buffer-types) to one of twelve (classes with a two-minute buff). It's definitely gotten less unique.